Day in the Life: Mary Charles Hale, Assistant Project Manager

“Developing relationships with our clients – that’s been my favorite thing. It used to make me really nervous, and I was super formal in emails and in person. But getting to know them as people, and working together with them to anticipate needs, answer questions and problem solve together, has really been great.”

It’s hard to believe that Mary Charles Hale, assistant project manager at Centerline, was ever nervous around clients – or anyone, for that matter.

“I came to Centerline as a project coordinator. It was a great place to start – I was able to gain a lot of experience super quickly, and had the opportunity to do a lot of different things in my first year,” Hale said.

Over the course of a year, Hale moved from project coordinator to assistant project manager. That first year, though, really set the foundation for her success in her new role.

“I got to touch all the different types of projects. I had never done anything in production, with video shoots. I had never done anything with development or interactive tools,” said Hale. “So I think what was really awesome about it, but also a huge learning curve, was like – if I’m making a schedule for an interactive project, what does that even look like? How long does it take people to do these things? What kind of information do they need up front?”

Once she got the hang of things, though, she found consistency amongst the chaos.

“A typical day would be coming in and first checking in with the folks working on our projects. From there we set the game plan – here are the priorities, here are the gaps that I need to fill, etc. Going from there, it’s sending things to clients and setting a schedule for when we need feedback or setting up a call. There also might be feedback coming in from the clients, and so we make sure we can distill that out to the team working on the projects,” said Hale.

“There are a lot of agency reviews – script reviews, animation reviews, video reviews. So it’s kind of a routine of making sure that everyone has what they need, and checking in on schedules and timelines and budgets.”

“Be prepared to – and feel OK with – feeling overwhelmed for – like – a month. Because there’s going to be a lot of information thrown at you, and a lot of projects going on – and that’s just part of how you start to pick up on things,” said Hale. “Just seeing a lot going on all at once is intimidating, but you’ll eventually see it as exciting.”

You’ll be surprised how quickly something so overwhelming at first can seem so normal.

“You get an opportunity to learn so much and grow quickly. When I think to where I was 15 months ago, I feel so much more prepared to handle things, and organized, and just confident in my abilities to take on certain things. For personal growth it definitely pushes you.”